


With Feet of Lead and Wings of Tin

by casfallsinlove



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Frottage, Language, M/M, Season/Series 07, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-13
Updated: 2013-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-11 18:57:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casfallsinlove/pseuds/casfallsinlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dean and Castiel coming together was never anything other than an inevitability, really. [Or, the one where Dean has no idea how much Cas needs him too - until he does, and that's when his world falls apart.] </p>
<p>(Contains direct references to seasons seven and eight, minor spoilers from previous seasons.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Feet of Lead and Wings of Tin

Sometimes, Dean hurts so badly he feels like he's burning from the inside out.

This isn't an entirely new sensation for him; after all, he spent forty years in Hell. But this time it's different. This is a whole new sort of pain (new, and yet at the same time maybe it's always really been there); it's a desperate vulnerability, a physical ache for something, _anything_ , he doesn't know what. Something he can't even put his finger on. People always say you can't miss what you never had but clearly that’s crap and you can, because he fucking well _does_.

And it's stupid, really really stupid, that this pain erupted so viciously at the same time that Cas disappeared, because that would suggest that the two are related and he _cannot_ even go there. Because that would be downright ridiculous, wouldn't it? Grieving like this for a broken angel who played God and nearly destroyed the world.

Except at the end, he wasn't psychopathic, power-hungry, soul-swallowing Castiel Angel of the Lord—for a brief minute he had been Cas again; awkward and socially-inept Cas, in his crumpled trenchcoat and wonky tie, his stupid blue eyes shining with a million apologies that would never be enough for either of them, no matter how honest they were (and screw honesty—maybe if there had been a bit more of that he wouldn't be in this situation).

But now he's gone, and Dean is left to clean up his mess. The Leviathans are a permanent headache, always present, all-consuming. They're too smart and too many and Dean feels like he's fighting a losing battle. Sam is hallucinating the fucking devil and Bobby is turning all vengeful spirit on them and for the first time ever Dean feels completely lost—like he's wading through treacle and everything is a struggle and all around him is fog, pressing in on all sides and suffocating him until he feels light-headed and so _tired_.

Then that yearning is there, that pulse of longing for something, some _one_ —for his friend. His best friend, really, though he’s never had one of those so he can’t be sure. Someone to stand beside him and listen to him worry over Sam and grieve over Bobby and tell him when he's being a dick, when he's about to make a disastrous decision. But Cas is gone. So Dean drinks and denies and doesn't respond to Sam's pitying questions—it's self-preservation on a detrimental scale, but it's the only way Dean knows how to deal.

Proclaiming himself to be _fucking pathetic, Winchester,_ Dean grimaces as the amber liquid spills from the bottle straight down his throat with a desolate, dragging burn.

 *

At some point, Purgatory stopped being terrifying and became thrilling. Dean's not really sure when that turning point was. All he knows is that one day he stopped being scared of the shadows in the dark and recognised the adrenaline rush for what it was; a buzz, a chemical high, a fix.

He was made for this, and he knows it. Things are so uncomplicated here. There are no messy human lives (even his own seems simplified now). He has one aim and one aim only: find the angel and get them both home. It beats like a mantra in his head, _findCasfindCasfindCas_ _,_ reverberating around his skull until he forgets everything else and the syllables blur into one long desperate growl.

Running is easier than it ever has been, eating unnecessary, sleeping a mere formality; and he's quicker, sharper, better because of it. The sluggish alcohol-drenched previous months become nothing more than a distant memory, and he laughs a bitter laugh to think of them.

Then he meets Benny and remembers how good it is to have someone watching your back. Together they slice and stab and cut and slash and it's fun, because they have a goal and they have a deal and it gives Dean hope.

He prays. Every night for days, weeks, months (it's hard to tell how much time passes here, but he thinks it must be months), and there's no guarantee that Cas even has his ears on, but he still prays to him. It's selfish, really. It's obvious the angel isn't in a position to reply (and goddammit Dean is so _not_ going to think about why that might be) so he's really only whispering _I'm gonna find you, man_ and _hold on, we're coming_ and _we're getting outta here, Cas_ to make himself feel better, to convince himself that it's all true and nothing can go wrong because everything in Purgatory is so damn simple.

Then Dean does find Cas, and he thinks something breaks inside him when he finds out that this whole time they've been running towards him, Cas has been running away. A wave of that same agony he felt back in the real world crashes over him for the first time since Dick fucking Roman zapped him here and he looks at Cas, with his stupid blue eyes and beard and trenchcoat by the lake and struggles against his indecisive fight or flight response. Because in that moment, he can't decide whether he wants to hit Cas or turn around and keep running and never stop.

But what ends up coming out of his mouth instead is _Cas, buddy, I need you_ and _I'm not leaving here without you_ and it's so brutally honest and he wants to crumple under the weight of emotion in Cas's usually stoic face, and he knows that Cas knows. Because he always has had a better reading on Dean than anyone, save maybe Sam.

After that Dean feels happy in a way he hasn't in a long time. Cas and Benny bicker like children but Dean's eye rolls are born of weary amusement rather than frustration, and the power of the three of them is incredible. Dean feels invincible, unbeatable and brilliant.

In retrospect, maybe he should have noticed the warning signs. Cas's constant tirade of _this isn't going to work_ and his almost reluctant footfalls and that fucking _look_ he keeps sending Dean's way, like he's sorry about something he hasn't done yet. But Dean pushes onwards, because if he can just get them to the exit, get them home again, he can tell Cas that it's okay and maybe Cas will believe him.

Of course, nothing in Dean Winchester's life ever works out the way he hopes.

*

When Dean sees Cas at the side of an empty road in the middle of Illinois and realises that he is neither drunk nor dreaming, the only conclusion he can come to is that he's going insane.

When Dean sees Cas standing outside their motel room in the rain and realises that he _still_ isn't drunk or dreaming, he _knows_ that he's insane.

The flesh on his hand tingles under the memory of Cas slipping away from him, and he flexes his fingers, clenches his fist. Guilt has always plagued Dean, guilt over disappointing his father and not doing something to save his mother and letting Ellen and Jo get killed and Bobby and Lisa and Ben and everyone else he's fucked over—but this is different. This is guilt accompanied by a fierce sadness, and he's not sure _when_ exactly blue eyes started to haunt his nightmares, but he can't remember ever dreaming about anything else. 

So when Cas, a very real very there Cas, appears behind him in the dingy little motel bathroom, a part of Dean wants to say _Cas, we've been over this, personal space;_ an echo of a memory perhaps, or a craving for simpler times, but in actuality all he can do is stare. Because how can this be possible? How can something have gone his way for once?

It makes him uneasy. Nothing good ever happens to him. Everything has a _but_ , a _however_ , another shoe to drop. It can't be that the universe simply dropped Cas right in their laps again, it _can't_. Sam can't seem to see it as clearly as Dean can, but Sam always has been an optimist. Dean is a realist. He knows this is too good to be true.

But then Cas comes back out of that bathroom and all coherent thought flees Dean's brain. Because he hasn't seen this Cas for years—this is the Cas who fell from Heaven for him, the Cas who disobeyed, the Cas who couldn't follow through with a hooker and swallowed a shitload of Leviathan because he thought he was saving the world. And Dean never realised until that moment just how much he missed that damn crooked tie. Some sort of muscle memory in his fingertips itches to straighten it.

He ignores it though, swallows the temptation, because Dean left Cas in Purgatory on his own, and he doesn't deserve to indulge himself in anything. Or so he thinks. But then it turns out that he's been remembering it wrong this whole time, and how screwed up is it that he chose to think it was his fault all these weeks? The guilt is assuaged slightly, at least for now, but it's replaced with a blaze of mingled anger and concern that's so intense it's mildly frightening. And when Cas says to him, a week later, _I'm afraid I might kill myself_ , Dean is afraid of that, too.

He wants to say all sorts of things, things like _you made a mistake, get over it_ and _you've served your time, Cas_ and in a sandpaper whisper _please don't_ , but Sam interrupts before he can even think about it. He doesn't get another chance after that, but it niggles at him because he did not get Cas back just for the damn angel to go top himself, and he wants to tell Cas that he knows how he feels because he _does_.

He offers to let Cas ride shotgun, and maybe he's being obvious but he doesn't care. Of course, Cas takes that opportunity to leave them again and if Dean spends the next couple of weeks of radio silence with worry churning heavily in his stomach, no one needs to know that.

The nausea only increases tenfold the next time they do see Cas, because it's obvious something's going on and the angel is freakin' bleeding from his eye, for god’s sake. All Dean can think of is secrets and lies and deals with the devil, and he fucking knew it was too good to be true.

*

The second time Dean says _I need you,_ he can hardly keep himself from grabbing and reaching and holding and begging and whispering it into Cas's ear, and maybe if it hadn't worked the first time he would have done. Because he's so scared, and he's never been this scared of Cas before, not even when he was playing God.

And Dean flinches away as long fingers touch his face and he doesn't know in that moment just how much that breaks Cas's heart, but he's almost crying maybe, from pain of every kind, and all he can think is that Cas is finally going to kill him.

He doesn't, of course, and if Dean hadn't been such a mess then maybe he would have seen the importance in that. But awkwardness descends rapidly and he isn't surprised when Cas vanishes.

*

There's a vicious part of Dean, a tiny little part, that wants to leave Cas in the road. Just get back in the Impala and drive off again. Leave him behind, like he's always leaving Dean behind.

It's not supposed to be like this. It's not supposed to be this damn hard. How can he worry about Sam and Cas and Kevin and the fucking tablets all at once? It's too much, and he's a big mess of self-loathing for allowing himself to care about all these other people. He misses the days when it was just himself and Sam (except it never really has been that, and he knows it). Caring about other people fucking hurts, and as much as he may want to let Cas bleed to death in the middle of the highway, he knows he never would, never could.

They get him back to the bunker and Dean and Sam carry him between them by unspoken agreement into the room that Dean had quietly reserved for Cas when they'd moved in. This isn't how he'd imagined showing him the place though, and it makes him furious that Cas has managed to screw that up, too.

Dean tells Sam to go to bed once Cas is sitting on the edge of his own, gasping in pain and avoiding their eyes quite resolutely. Sam looks unsure, but it's obvious the effort of hauling Cas inside has done a number on him, so he hands Dean a first aid kit (and when did he pick that up?) and bids them goodnight.

He closes the door softly behind him and Dean fights the urge to open it again. He feels trapped here in this dark room with a bleeding angel and nothing but the sound of harsh breathing.

In the car Cas had said he was healing, but Dean looks at him now and doesn't believe it. He didn't think it was possible for someone to be that pale, that slumped over themselves, that defeated. His body is all severe lines and angles, contorted in pain. It scares Dean and angers him all at once. His eyes fall to the first aid kit between his fingers. He could patch Cas up, like he's patched Sam up countless times over the years.

For the first time since the road, Cas looks up and directly at Dean. He's silently pleading, for what Dean doesn't know, but he is certain that he doesn't want to find out. He's even surer that he can't patch Cas up, can't be that close to him. So he drops the first aid kit on the bed, murmurs something about there being _bandages and stuff_ in there, and turns away.

It takes his hand on the door for Cas to whisper his name into the dimly-lit room, followed by a _please_. Everything inside Dean clenches, his chest hurts and his stomach squirms, and he pauses as though to turn around. But then Cas whispers a broken _please, I - I need you_ and if Dean ever thought he'd wanted to hear those words, he was wrong.

He turns, yes, but only long enough to spit out _no, you do not get to say that to me_ , before he's opening the door and disappearing through it.

Maybe Dean cries that night, silently, into the bottom of a bottle, and maybe he is still hurting the next morning, too much to even meet Cas's gaze. Because how can he admit to Cas that he looks at him and is certain that that's it, he's going to drown in him?

*

Dean knows before he gets to the bunker that Cas isn't going to be there when they return. He knows it as surely as he knows that Sam isn't okay and they royally fucked up the Abaddon situation. So when Sam confirms this for him, disappointment etched on his face, Dean simply accepts the inevitable tension that throbs in his temples.

When they get back from Sarah’s he goes to bed drunk and miserable (nothing unusual there) and leaves his door ajar—a habit he's picked up the last few months in the hope that he'll hear if something is wrong with Sam. Maybe it stems from spending near enough three decades sleeping in the same room as his brother, but it makes him uneasy knowing that Sam's more than an arm's reach away now, particularly when he's so ill.

But it's the door closing that wakes Dean, and he doesn't think twice about whipping his gun out from under his pillow and pointing it at the bulky shadow moving around his room. It's familiar, painfully so, and he blinks rapidly to clear the sleep from his eyes. Cas comes into focus, looking even more ruffled and bedraggled than usual, a white plastic bag in one hand that shines obscenely in the darkness and what appears to be a six-pack in the other, if the quiet chinking of glass on glass is anything to go by.

Dean thinks he swears, but he's still dragging from being awoken and can't be sure. He doesn't lower the gun.

_Hello, Dean._

It's a whisper, really. A murmur. But it just about tears Dean apart. Before he knows what he's doing, he's on his feet, thanking a God he can't believe in that he was too lazy to bother stripping off before he got into bed. He doesn't want to raise his voice, he doesn't, but as he demands to know just why Cas has returned, what he's playing at, why he's fucking doing this to him, he can't help it.

Cas presents the bags silently, murmuring something about porn and eggs and being out of pie, and the idea of Cas grocery shopping for him, knowing everything he likes best, fills Dean with a rushing warmth that makes his bare toes curl. Then he remembers that it doesn't take a human more than twelve hours to do a grocery shop, much less an angel, and the heat turns cold as abruptly as it had arrived.

_Where the hell have you been?_ It's a loaded question because really Dean doesn’t just mean today, or this year, but every single day since the damn apocalypse ended. Cas doesn't answer, and oh look he's keeping things from them again, but Dean suddenly finds that he doesn't care (or maybe he cares too much and he just can't tell the difference any more).

He takes the beer and the bag, dropping them onto the chair in the corner. It's difficult to say what's running through his head. It's one whole big tangle of crazy in there; his emotions are all over the place and he isn't sure if he wants Cas to stay or shove him away again. All he knows is that he's so fucking _tired_ , utterly exhausted by everything, and he just needs it all to stop, if only temporarily.

So he does the only thing he knows how to do. He crowds a surprisingly unsurprised Cas back against the door, fingers fisting in tan fabric, growls something along the lines of _this damn coat, man_ and smashes their mouths together.

If Dean ever thought this might happen, he certainly didn't expect it to happen like this. He'd always imagined that there would be more alcohol involved, or perhaps it would be a 'last night on earth' type situation, a final 'fess all before the lights go out. But this ... whatever this is, is all wrong (and also so incredibly fucking inevitable).

There's so much anger at first; it crackles in the air, permeating their every move until Dean feels uncomfortable in his own skin, burning and bubbling and aching for something he doesn't know, can't begin to understand. His lips move roughly against Cas, who is stiff and unyielding between Dean and the door, until Dean starts to crave more and forces himself to pull back.

To all intents and purposes, Cas should be shocked by this turn of events. Hell, Dean is a little shocked and he's the one who instigated the kissing (not that you can really call what they just shared a kiss), but Cas looks like he knew it was going to happen and resigned himself to it. Maybe he did. And suddenly Dean is uncertain that this is a good idea. Well, he's always known that this wasn't a good idea, but he's very aware of it now.

His eyes search Cas's, so fucking stupid and big and blue, and his emotions must be written all over his face because suddenly Cas is asking what he needs. _What do you need, Dean? Dean, what do you need? Tell me, tell me what you need_ , and the answer is so painstakingly obvious that it hardly needs saying, but the words _you, you son of a bitch_ are imprinted on lingering lips anyway, and this time they really are kissing, hard and hot and heavy.

It's not like Dean is expecting this to be his happy ending. In fact, he's one hundred percent certain that this is only going to cause him more misery in the coming days. There are questions waiting for answers that don't want to be heard, and trials and tablets and whatever Cas was doing today to contend with. They both know that Cas will be gone again by the morning, and they'll go back to being angry and sad and mixed-up, so Dean will be damned if he isn't going to make the most of this right now.

Their bodies are pressed together along their entire length, Dean's thigh forcing its way between Cas's legs, and _oh god_ the guttural moan the angel makes should not be freakin' allowed. Dean spares a thought for how ridiculous this is; they're grinding against each other like horny teenagers, like they're on a clock.

As if he's been reading his mind (an entirely real possibility) Cas slows down, stops rutting, easing the pressure of his lips until it's less devouring and more tasting, tongues colliding gently with bursts of stars behind eyelids. But for Dean this is harder to deal with than the fiery intensity. This softer approach permits him to _feel_ , and that's all kinds of dangerous.  

It's possible he's begging, _Cas please, oh my god, oh fuck, c'mon,_ and he's not entirely sure what it is he wants Cas to do until the angel uses his impossible strength to flip them around so that Dean is the one slamming back into the door and his lips attach themselves firmly the hollow behind Dean’s ear.

They don't bother removing any clothing, but Cas somehow manages to ruck Dean's t-shirt up until it's somewhere around his chest, and Dean unbuttons Cas's dress shirt with shaking hands. His fingers trace over every crease and dip and curve of Cas's torso as if he wants to commit it to memory (he does), from the hard lines of his chest down to the softer planes of his stomach, over the raw-looking but mostly healed pink scars of his recent encounter with Crowley.

They drag it out for as long as possible, knowing that once it's over reality is going to smack them in the face again, but when Cas's hips rut against Dean's a little too hard, and his teeth nip at the juncture between Dean's neck and shoulder, and Cas moans his name like he just can't hold it in any longer, Dean comes in his pants harder than he ever has done.  Cas thrusts once, twice more and then does the same, groaning low and long as he presses a filthy kiss to Dean's swollen lips.

They take a moment to catch their breath, foreheads resting together, and Dean daren't open his eyes because he's terrified of what he's going to see looking back at him. But then Cas’s thumbs run over his cheekbones, tilting his head up until it becomes more painful _not_ to look at him.

Dean pre-empts the _I must go_ before Cas even says it, but it doesn't stop it hurting like a bitch. He nods, not trusting himself to say anything. But the _I must go_ is followed by a firm _I will come back_ and then a soft rustle of wings, and it's those latter four words that Dean chooses to cling to in the following days, in the moments where it feels like he's going to lose everything all over again. It's Cas's deep, rumbling voice in his ear as he fights tooth and nail for all of their lives. _I will come back_.  

**Author's Note:**

> Gah, this is my first ever spn fic and posting it is making me all antsy and nervous. It was supposed to be about half the length of this, too. I don't really know what happened there. The title is from Vonnegut's 'Cat's Cradle' (because I'm unoriginal like that).
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it. It's un-beta'd, so any mistakes are mine.
> 
> And god, I'm so sorry for all the angst.


End file.
